Description

SW 72 NW CONSTANTINE FORE STREET, Constantine

8/95 Constantine Methodist Church
- including front courtyard wall,
gate-piers and gates

GV II

Wesleyan chapel. Dated 1880. Rendered stone rubble with a granite ashlar front.
Interlocking concrete tile roof with gabled ends; parapeted gable at front.
Plan: Large rectangular chapel with a first floor auditorium over ground floor
rooms, one of which was used as a Sunday School. Both the ground floor and
auditorium are entered via a porch in the south front and the rostrum and organ
gallery are at the opposite north end.
Exterior: 2 storeys. 3-bay gabled south front with a moulded granite cornice and
trefoil finial to the gable and rusticated granite corner pilasters; the ground floor
and the centre of the first floor are also rusticated. The centre of the front
breaks forward and has a 3-bay arcade on the ground floor with slender granite
columns, moulded extrados and keyblocks; the moulded cornice over the first floor
rises over the large round-headed central first floor window which has round-headed
lights and foiled tracery. On the ground and first floor either side is a small
round-headed window with a keyblock on the first floor and corbelled heads on the
first floor. In the gable a stone plaque inscribed "Wesley Chapel 1880".
Behind the front arcade the recessed porch has a central 5-light window with round-
headed lights flanked by doorways to the ground floor rooms and double-doors with
overlights in the returns which give accesss to the auditorium; all the windows and
doors within the porch have their original margin glazing bars.
On either side of the chapel 3 large segmental headed first floor windows with margin
glazing bars and straight-headed sashes on the ground floor with glazing bars.
Including the contemporary front courtyard wall with dressed granite plinth and
granite ashlar above; it recedes with an ogee curve at the centre to the gateway
which has monolithic granite piers with chamfered corners and moulded pyramid caps;
ornate cast-iron gates and similar terminal piers at each end. There were originally
railings on the wall.
Interior: Large auditorium on the first floor with a coved plaster ceiling with
moulded ribs and classically decorated light roses. The original box pews are
intact, they are planned in a semi-circle with pews in the centre as well. The pews
have panelled fronts and shaped bench ends. The elaborate rostrum has a semi-
circular reader's desk with an arcaded front and a cast-iron balustrade.
The rail in front also has a cast-iron balustrade. Behind the rostrum is the organ
gallery.
On the ground floor the rooms were used for the Sunday School and other purposes and
the floor above is supported on cast iron columns.

Listing NGR: SW7328829049

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26434928

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)